sitor

I'm not totally sure that I'm right, but I thought that you can run WMV files on Mandrake. You just have to install the Win32 codecs from PLF (again, I think so). Ciao, Sitor

Hello, First of all, using MDL 10.0 CE without updates is asking for trouble. The CE (Community Edition) is meant as an early release for the ones that want the newest and the coolest and are prepared to take some bugs with it. So it is very possible that a lot of your problems will be gone after installing MDL 10.0 OE (Official Edition). That is the same as CE, but with most of the bugs solved. Now some comments about your intial post: 1. What you describe about software not working anymore is something that I once had with MDL 9.0, but I had it installed on a ext2 filesystem. ext2 is no journalised filesystem, so that means problems after an improper shutdown. Make sure to install on a journalise filesystem like ext3 or ReiserFS. 2. I update at least once a week (if there are updates to be done). Always use the GUI, never had programs that got broken (I think you must be using a wrong command there). Just use the update functionality from RPMdrake (via the Configure your computer menu item). 3. It is true that driver support can be a problem. If you have quite standard HW, you will not have a lot of problems (for me it always worked excellent even for my digital still and video cameras, they require seperate driver installation under Winbloze, but are recognized without problems in MDL 10). IMHO if this is a problem for you, you have bad luck, since for most people there are not that much problems anymore. 4. I do not agree that there is a lack of software for Linux. That all depends on what you want to do. For me, with what I do, I can do everything (including editing my digital video and stuff) on MDL 10 and I do not really need Winbloze anymore. But of course you need to install it. What I do is setting all sources (you can use the easy URPMI website to do so). Then, if I want to do something that I don't have the correct software for yet, in the software install module of RPMdrake, I just type a keyword of what I want to do and specify that het needs to look in the descriptions as well. I then get most of the time several software packages that can do what I want. I install them all and try them to keep only my favourite. Of course there are some areas where software on Linux can be a problem. E.g. I still did not find a good alternative to M$ Access. Also the children have a lot of Winbloze games, and I never got to trying Wine at all. But I now created a seperate logon for them and installed all Linux games that they might be interested in, so even the children now use more Linux then Winbloze. So in any case try the OE and use RPMdrake. Maybe that most of your troubles will be gone. Ciao, Sitor

Never dispair! There is still a chance to change things. To all people in the EU, please do not give up, but intensify the campaign. Get anyone on board that you know, even people that are not interested in software and FLOSS. This has to become more then only software patents. This decision should be turned back already just because of its undemocratic nature. Use that argument to convince MEP's to vote against the proposal. If they will see it as a fundamental issue with the "democratic" structures of the EU, they will vote massively against the proposal even if it is only to show that the EU parliament can not just be put aside. This is the second time this happens (same thing happened with the information that the US request from EU passanger flying into the US, where the parliament did not agree to the treaty because of privacy rules being broken). Start campaigning all over. We got still a couple of months, but the time to do this is NOW. With the European elections only a couple of weeks ahead, we can have an impact now. Make sure only people against software patents get voted on. Make sure that everyone who you know, knows who these people are and why it is so damn important to vote for them and not for the others! Sitor

I'm happy it worked after all. But boy, you had to go through some trouble it seems. In any case, I would advice you to perform a full update of your system. Probably the mouse problem will be gone then. There have been quite some mouse problems with 10.0 CE, but they should be gone with OE (and if you perform the updates, you will have the same packages as if you would have installed OE). It will probably be a few hundred MBs though. Ciao, Sitor

The EU has, like all else, good and bad things. Anyone not liking the bad things should not be fighting the EU as a whole (that is a negative attitude), but try to enforce the good things (like the little democratic elements it does have) and fight the bad ones (like the software patent stuff). Then you have a positive attitude and maybe help achieve some improvements to the world we live in. Just my humble point of view. Ciao, Sitor

Sorry that it works out so bad for you. I'm a newbie myself, and did a similar thing without any problem. I installed MDL 9.2 some time ago on my single drive dual boot with Win XP personal. No problem at all. Some time ago I added a second HD. When I wanted to install 10.0 I installed it on that new drive. Again no problem at all. Everything worked like a charm. You are using MDL 10.0 Official Edition are you? If you have been trying with Community Eddition, just wait till Official Edition is available for you. You could also try to install with the 2.4 kernel instead of the 2.6 (I read that some HW is better support under 2.4 kernel then 2.6 kernel). In any case, disconnecting the first drive sounds like a very good suggestion. Just don't give up and good luck! Sitor

I agree to that. Setting up urpmi sources is thé thing to do to get everything out of Mandrake. That makes me love Mandrake. Want some SW, just indicate your box which one and (most of the time this just works, only very rarely a dependency or signature is not OK) it gets downloaded and installed. You only have to start using it. SW installation made easy! Ciao, Sitor

Mandrake Linux 10.0 Official Eddition is out for sale indeed. But from what I just checked on the MandrakSoft website (the official MandrakeMove description), the MandrakeMove version they are selling is still base on the 9.2 install version. So for the moment there is no 10.0 based MandraMove available. And what's more, there is nothing indicating there will be any time soon (MandrakeMove did not have a version number, as if it was a one time thing, and there is nothing on the website that indicates they are working on a new version). Ciao, Sitor

Sounds as an interesting project, but as long as the distro's you can run on it are still so limited, I think I will stick to VMWare (which is not at all perfect, but which does work for me). Will keep an eye on this one though. Ciao, Sitor

Hello, I think you should really complain with the organisation that has handed you your credit card. The credit cards that I have had so far all work in the way that transactions are to be proved by the vendor, meaning that if the customer does not agree with a transaction, the vendor does need to proof that the customer agreed with the amount AND the customer did receive the goods. If the vendor cannot proof this, your bank needs to give you back the money and it is up to them to sort it out with the vendor (vendor needs to pay back bank basically). I had a problem a couple of years ago with a hotel billing me for some nights stay (some 1 500 €s) when I really was on another continent at that moment. It worked out for me. Got my money back. I'm sure it will be sorted out for you as well. Good luck in any case, Ciao, Sitor

Well, I did not mean this negative, but seen the problems you had with playing DVDs and stuff, and the ease of getting this to work with Mandrake, I just wondered. But of course if getting your Internet connectivity OK in Mandrake is not possible at all, there is a very good reason (and curiousity is as well of course). Anyhow, if I would need to pick a distro to use for work (unfortunately I'm not so happy they would let me), I would pick SUSE, since it seems very apt for that from what I see in reviews. For home use I still prefer Mandrake because of PLF as a source. Ciao, Sitor

I think nevertheless, the whole FOSS community should react, and not sit back and watch what happens. This is at this moment more important then anything else regarding FOSS. If this legislation passes, you want be able to work on FOSS anymore, because with every line of code you will be writing, you will be running the risk that some big company that has patented "Hello world" will drag you into court. Even if their claims do not make any sense at all, you'll be bankrupt before that a judge will confirm that, so you will not be able to run the risk. Finished with developing (and probably using, see what SCO is doing to Linux users) open source software! There are some sites that are starting a nice initiative. They list from all politicians in the European Parliament what their attitude has been on software patents up till now: For Holland: http://www.softwarepatenten.be/rapport.html For Belgium: http://www.softwarepatenten.be/rapport.html What I am going to do now, is to find fax or e-mail of the politicians that behaved negative to software patents, give them a pat on the back and ask them to prove in the coming weeks (just before the European elections) to show they are serious with it and to take firm action to stop this nonsense (demonstrations, ...). Besides that I am going to confront the ones that have behaved positive to software patents with their attitude, give some facts why this is not good, and (in the view of the elections) ask them to change their position and show this very clearly (demonstrations, ...). I hope that everyone on this board will follow this example, then we might have some effect. Ciao, Sitor

What is the advantage over MDL 10.0? 10.0 OE is very good, and it also has kernel 2.6 and KDE 3.2. I don't know any bugs in 10.0 OE, and you don't have problems getting DVDs and DIVXs to work. Honestly, I don't understand why you installed SUSE instead of 10.0 OE. Ciao, Sitor

John, I found the setting for the buffer and have set it to 64 MB as well. The temporary file is set on a partition that still has 8.5 GB left, so that should not be a problem. However, still not the solution. Now, when the burning starts, the buffer just slowly empties, till literally 0, and then the burning continues without buffer. It is just as if the reader (with the source CD) just can't follow the speed of the writer. But the reader is a 40x DVD /CD-ROM combo. It should cope with the read speed with ease! I tested by copying the CD contents the HD. It copies the whole CD in about 2 minutes. Way faster then the copying to the writer. So the reader's HW is OK. It is really something K3b related (probably one of the apps it depends on). What should I do, increase the buffer up to 650MB? Sounds like crazyness! Ciao, SItor

Hello, I'm having a strange problem, which I never had before. When I copy audio CDs (with recordings of our own show, so nothing illegal, nothing protected), the buffer of k3b is only between 1 and 7%. At the same time the CDs are copied only at an average speed of 4x. Has nothing to do with the source CD (tried different ones), and the burner is a Plextor PX-708A that should be able to burn CD-Rs at 40x, and which does burn DVD+RW at the almost maximum speed of 2,23x (1x for DVDs is a lot higher dataspeed then 1x for a CD-R). The buffering is so bad that I already lost two CD-Rs because there was a buffer underrun. Bad publicity for Linux towards my wife (she already does not like me putting so much time in it, and that she has to learn to work with other apps). Anyone a clue how to get this solved? Ciao, Sitor

Gowater, I do not know much of the legal mumbo jumbo, so don't ask me how, but possible it must be. Just read that Java Desktop 2 has been launched by SUN and that it has DVDCSS by default. So if there is a way for SUN to do it, there must be a way for MandrakeSoft as well. And if MandrakeSoft does not, others will! And why would anyone then still buy MandrakeSoft? I like MandrakeSoft a lot because it is fully open, newbie friendly and you can find packages for it for almost any soft that is available for free on Linux via official sources or PLF. If the PLF like stuff is already foreseen in a distro that costs less then a year of MandrakeClub,... Ciao, Sitor

Well, it is already some time now that I am wondering why they do not bring out a version for the big public with all free proprietary stuff, AND URPMI sources for PLF set up correctly, Flash, JAVA, Acrobat PDF, etc installed by default. Then the conversion from Winblows would almost be a nobrainer. If you add Winex, Cossover, and price it not higher then what you pay for the Winblows OS, but you get all these apps with it... I know installing everything people would want to be able to use would pose legal problems in some countries like the US for instance, but there are possibilities, come on. Like messages on first use that some of the software might go against the local laws and that it is up to the user to only install software that is legal in their country, or only selling it in countries where it is legal (I mean if it becomes such a no-brainer, it must be possible to make enough money out of it). And the thing is, everything is there! It just hase to be packaged! Well I guess if it is so easy and as MDL is FLOSS, anyone could do that, in coöperation with MandrakeSoft, or if they would not want to coöperate, without them. Anyone that feels like starting a new business?? Ciao, Sitor

What is against French cars? I've been driving French cars from the moment I have a license. They're the best!

If you deal with businesses, you have to provide this kind of stuff indeed! And if you really want to get in to businesses, you should do much more: offer a full service like you find in big companies: - PCs (desktops & laptops) preinstalled with all the software that is used in that company - full support on those PCs (with an SLA i.e. if there is a HW problem or other that can not be solved remote, you send over a technician to fix the problem within x hours) - update and patch management for the company If I would run a company, and someone would want to convert me to Linux, that is what I would ask for. Ciao, Sitor

Well, I do not agree with that one. There are dozens of companies that make profits in the slipstream of M$. They way I see it is that with Linux, anyone that can offer a real added value can make more profit, but not the ones that rely on monopoly. That means that the companies surfing the M$ monopoly wave (and there are a lot of those) will get into trouble (unless the pull themselves together). But on the other hand, M$ is a big company, with loads of money. So it would not wonder me that if one day revenues from Winbloze start to go down because the added value compared to Linux has become too small, they will make sure to find another way to offer added value. They are looking to other routes already (like MSN, X-box, etc.). Like the renounced the Internet at its beginning and then embraced it when their business plan become positive on it (when they were forced to?), they might in the future come to embrace Linux (and probably they will again try to suffocate it, but will fail again in it. One thing is for sure: they will not just stand at the side and watch! Ciao, Sitor

Duh?? Of course people do that. Often Linux is the only legal choice against an old Winbloze people have. Either their HW is not heavy enough or the finances are not there for a purchase of a new version. So this choice is reality for those people. Linux they can get without problems the newest and greatest. On Winbloze they are stuck with the preïnstalled version from years ago. In what way this comparison would not be fair then? Ciao, Sitor

I get the same problem in VMWare. Did not find any solution yet but to restart the virtual machine. Since ext3 that is not so much of a problem anymore. Before, it could really screw up your install. Never had such a problem on my desktop. Ciao, Sitor

Well IMHO I don't think it is bad that a government is open to proprietary as well. The need for everything they use make a decision on the most appropriate choice. I can imagine that some things are just not there yet in open source, or that there might be other reasons why a certain proprietary tool is more approriate in certain circumstances. So that point I do not care too much about. What I dislike is this: That seems to be the real FUD to me. Even if the initial development is not following a certain standard, it should be easy to adapt it to do so. And if interoperability is indeed a problem, it seems very clear that someone will.

Suppose it was indeed only valid for VMWare running on WinBloze. I agree with you. And I am having problems regularly. KDE that gets ****ed up and stuff. The experience of MDL in VMWare on WinBloze is far inferior to the experience of a MDL running straight on a PC. But That is the only way I can run MDL in the Office, so better then nothing (it allows me to test some stuff during my lunch break). Ciao, Sitor

There is a wizard that you can use in the Mandrake Control Center. It allows you to set up ProFTPd so that each user can download his own files. Maybe that is not exactly what you were looking for, but if you give your buddy an own account on your Mandrake server, and you put the files in the /home directory of that account, he'll be able to retrieve them. Should be very easy to set up, and probably reasonably secure. Ciao, Sitor